Protraph Lack of good storyline.

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Console best movie i've ever seen.

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Essex_Rider I have a real connection to this movie as one of my best childhood friends appeared in it. He was Malcolm McFee and he played one of the Smith family. This is truly a great film and a wonderful adaptation of the Joan Littlewood stage play. It shows, in a way never used before, the horrors of war perpetrated by the lunacy on all sides. While the monarchs of Europe argued, millions of men diedThere are many high points throughout the film, I thought the sermon by the priest was poignant in asking God for victory, and of course the inference is that all sides are doing the same. Haig doesn't really come off to lightly either, because he is shown for the type of war he really fought. Men to him were simply numbers, and by his reckoning, if we lost I million men and the Germans lost over that, it was a victory. For me, the most touching part is where the ghosts of the Smiths finally meet the camera pulls up to reveal the thousands of crosses. Oh What a Lovely Warshould also read 'Oh What a Bloody Waste'.

Jastrzebiec This is a superlative film. Though based on the Joan Littlewood stage play (itself derived from a Charles Chilton radio piece), the film has the creativity, visual sense and sardonic wit of Len Deighton throughout. Apparently, it also was Len who had the brainstorm to set the fantasy sections at Brighton, which worked brilliantly! Inexplicably, he asked for his name to be removed from the writing and producing credits. (Later, after swearing off the film industry, he got his revenge with his novel "Close-up.") Whatever "corporate changes" (in the sense of group-think) were made to his script, it still works. And it works extremely well. Not only as an anti-World War I piece, but as a powerful critique of the British class structure and the amoral diplomats and generals who sent millions, nearly a generation, to early graves. I can't think of another film that has so artfully blended satire, farce, tragedy and history. This film is "Dr. Strangelove" caliber, but it's a musical, using the patriotic tunes of the day with the sarcastic alternate lyrics that the troops themselves created.Kudos go to first-time director (now Lord) Richard Attenborough, and a stellar cast that was essentially the British Pantheon, circa 1969.I have never seen anything remotely like this, and I doubt if I ever will again. Emotional? If you don't have a few tears by the time they're playing "No, We'll Never Tell Them,"...better check for a pulse.

Steffi_P The musical has always been one of the most versatile genres. It has often been a lighter, more joyous, even more poetic way of presenting comedies, dramas and familiar stories. It can even bring in an additional layer of poignancy or satirical bite, and since the depression-era Gold Diggers of 1933 to the Oscar-winning West Side Story it has proved itself an adept vehicle for the dealing with serious social issues.But is the abstract frivolity of a musical perhaps a tad disrespectful for one of the most devastatingly tragic episodes of the twentieth century? It could have been, but the secret of Joan Littlewood's original musical play is in fact its roots in reality. As stated in an opening title every number is a genuine song from the time, just as all the statements made by historical characters are based on things they actually wrote or said. The extravagance of the staging in each scene is tailored to the play's twin prongs of satire and gritty re-enactment. Thus the "breaks" with reality are largely at the expense of the officers (playing leapfrog for example) or the war machine in general. Whenever we are with the soldiers the tone is far closer to naturalism and the songs are sung more or less as they really might have been, albeit with professional tunefulness.Richard Attenborough was part of the ongoing rush of actors and technicians into the director's chair. While not the best of these, Attenborough was far from the worst. Importantly for this picture, he has a real knack of controlling shifts in mood, taking us from bombast to humour to melancholy within a single scene through his control of fine detail. By changing the visual focus during a song, say from a group shot to a close-up of a face against a plain background, he moves us from its jolliness to its poignant flipside. One of the best examples is during the trio of songs in the French brothel, where Attenborough's arrangement of small movements in the background is consistent with the upbeat "The Moon Shines Down on Charlie Chaplin" into the bittersweet "Adieu la vie", all within the same space and handful of shots.Of course one of the most obvious trademarks of a Richard Attenborough film is that he uses it as a chance to hand out cameos to numerous greats of the British theatre, and there are more of them than ever in Oh! What a Lovely War. While it's nice to see the likes of Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, John Mills, John Gielgud and Jack Hawkins (now muted by throat cancer but doing a wonderful bit of silent acting), it is the younger and lesser-known bit players who are really worth watching out for here. The best performance is surely that of former radio actress Mary Wimbush, who gives a quiet yet heartfelt turn as the mother of the Smith family, representing every mother's feelings through her wordless emoting. But by and large few of the cast make a lasting impact as they are all effectively bit players, and that goes for the big names too.But this was never meant to be a drama with an overriding personal story arc. It is the story of a war, and incidentally a surprisingly informative one. Precisely because it is does not focus for too long on any one character's strand, and by the clever mixing of historical statement and popular song, it is able to give us a point-by-point factual overview of the war's progress, as well as the reactions on the home front and in the trenches, and even an idea of the culture of the time. It teaches more political and domestic history than any other First World War picture I know. Oh! What a Lovely War is perhaps not so much a musical drama, as a musical documentary.

John Downes What is this film exactly? It certainly isn't history or documentary. If it's a musical, then it's rubbish. No, the word for this stuff is agit-prop.This is a film very much of its time. And the time in question....the 1960s, flower power, war is wrong, give peace a chance, etc etc etc.It unthinkingly subscribes to the discredited 'Lions led by Donkeys' mantra beloved of the Luvvie mindset.All of these opinions have, thank goodness, fared poorly with the passing of time, hence the very dated feeling engendered by this film. Nowadays the war-guilt of the Kaiser's Germany is much clearer, and those who have thought with clarity on the subject are perfectly aware that we didn't need a Neville Chamberlain in 1914.So, watch this as an interesting period piece, very revealing of the attitude of its makers. Otherwise, give it a pass.